Dr. Carpenter's Testimony Released, "If their tongue isn't out then, they aren't dead!"

By: Bobby Johnson, WTL

Updated: 7:23 AM CT, Tues February 1, 2022

The infamous Dr. Carpenter finally took the stand last Friday to defend himself in the nationwide class action lawsuit brought against him.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 18 months then you know about the claims against Dr. Jeff Carpenter from Oregon. Carpenter had been working as an emergency room doctor for four years in the Canyon County Hospital. During that time, Carpenter had been the on-call doctor for over 300 deaths that happened at the hospital.

This is not a story of a doctor who had done any sort of negligence or malpractice to cause the death of any of these patients. Many doctors have reviewed the events of all the deaths and agreed that there is nothing Carpenter could have done to save them. As a matter of fact, a patient under the care of Dr. Carpenter actually had a 23% higher chance of surviving than if they had been seen by Carpenter's predecessor or his colleagues at the closer hospitals. His lawsuit is actually much stranger than that.

Carpenter refused to call a time of death on all but four of the patients seen by him. This class action lawsuit is over the fact that, without a death certificate, the families cannot receive the life insurance money in which they are entitled. When we interviewed the hospital pathologist it got even weirder, "I can't sign the death certificate without a time of death," Marissa Hoskins said, the pathologist in charge of determining the cause of death. "I spoke to Dr. Carpenter to get the time of death and he said he couldn't get it because they aren't dead."

We finally got an answer last Friday of what exactly Carpenter meant by this. After all, Hoskins did the autopsies. There had been no question that these patients were deceased. When Carpenter testified, he said "The patients aren't dead. If their tongues aren't out and they aren't cross eyed then they aren't dead. You don't have to be a doctor to know that." When asked why then did he call the time of death on at least four other patients, the answer was simple, "Their tongues were out and they were cross eyed."

"if their tongues aren't out and they aren't cross eyed then they aren't dead"

It was hard to argue with that logic. We researched Carpenter's background and his degrees and experience all seem to be legitimate. Outside of an obsession with cartoons and golden age sitcoms, there seems to be no other reason Carpenter would have such an outlandish idea of what it means to be dead.

We will keep you updated as this lawsuit carries on into it's third week.